The UN needs a revamp in its ways

As the next President of the United States, you have to be the voice to change the United Nations ineffective actions for trying to promote world peace. The crisis in the Middle East and the brewing one in North Korea.

Dear Next President,

One of the more current issues in the world is a lack of communication between nations. Without nations actually talking between one another, there is no way to resolve any conflicts or even discuss them. The United Nation was meant to attend to any crisis that occurs in the world. A major example of the failure of the United Nations is in the Middle East. In Syria, research by Dr. Roger G. Hearn, a senior leader of the international non-governmental organization that focuses on human rights, environmental, improving health, or development work in a range of conflict affected countries states “The United Nations and other aid agencies working out of Damascus cowered under the Syrian regime and have allowed their relief efforts to be sabotaged. As a consequence, aid, largely under the control of the regime, is now a vital component of its repression and control tactics.” The oppressors are able to use the stolen supplies to be used against the people they were meant to help. This shows how the U.N is failing at its primary goal. The U.N is being silenced before action can be taken, while Syria is being brutally oppressed the U.N continues to remain quiet and not challenge this regime. In addition, the U.N itself can’t do anything about the crisis since Russia and China are allied with the Syrian government. Somini Sengupta, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, has reported how “Russia, along with China, vetoed a draft resolution last year(2014) that would have referred the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court”. Russia and China are promoting the conflict in Syria even though the deaths of thousands are occurring with every strike, so how or why are the other nations not taking actions against Russia and China for their blatant disregard for human life?

But the Middle East isn’t the only issue the UN are, or failing to, deal with in the world. In another conflict ridden country, Rose Delaney, an Associate Writer of Inter-Press Service, reported how the “North Korean nuclear threat endangers and poses a great threat to global peace and security...The implementation of Resolution 2270 has proved exceedingly difficult as North Korea is defiant and acts out against the international voice. In fact, they've launched 7 missiles recently”. Resolution 2270 is mandate condemning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea using ballistic missile technology and demanding that it comply immediately with its international obligations. Whether the UN can, or will, enforce this Resolution remains to be seen, but when a UN Resolution can’t even be enforced to prevent conflict proves how ineffective it is in deciding global issues, even showing how these unenforced Resolutions are just as ineffective as the past attempts of the League of Nations.

Whatever the UN plans to do in places like Syria or North Korea, they need to act soon. However, they have to act with the weight of the people’s lives directly involved, and indirectly, on their shoulders. With the Syrian refugees, the UN’s decision making with allowing Visa permits to allow refugees to pass into other countries will affect both the refugees themselves and whomever will receive, or deny access for, the refugees. There are those who wish to help the refugees, then there are the people pushing the refugees away under the guise that they are terrorists. Then there are those still in Syria, those who choose to stay even though the chances of dying there is higher than most places in the world. The UN’s attempted cease fire talks aren’t showing any results since the UN’s legitimacy is always in question, and this has happened since any action they take show little to no results.

The primary issue within the UN and why they can’t do anything is the political and social differences between the leaders of the UN. Along with the issue of Russia and China supporting the bombings in Syria, there are other matters the nations would never even discuss, let alone fix. Trying to make a decision in the UN is like trying to balance two balls on each other, as soon as either nation disagrees the balance is faulted. To be able to pass anything would only be on topics none of the nations are directly influenced by or influencing. The UN can’t enforce Russia’s ‘cease fires’ or enforce decisions on things like the North Korean missile testing. And the UN has to start making legitimate decisions about the crisis occurring right now, and the only way that can happen is that the UN be given a big push to actually doing work. The most difficult part is that all the major world powers are the main heads of the UN and they all share equal power. Therefore, the only way to change it is for all the nations to work together, and the first step to that change is communication. We need a new way to promote communication and understanding between all countries. While the language barrier has been broken, the cultural barriers are still blocking any connection.

Global issues need to be addressed and acted upon instead of false promises that provide no real help. And with the US being one of the primary heads of the United Nations, we need to be the one to lead it into what it was meant to be. An organization not just promoting world peace, but to resolve and prevent any form of global issues that occur. We need to be the push to allow the world to co-exist, or there never may be real peace within our world. Other than expanding open communication between nations, you, the president, have to continually push ideas into the UN for stopping conflicts in places like Syria, enforce the actual Resolutions passed by the UN, or or indirectly providing support the enforcement, and not back away from the opposition to world peace. With the United States being the top world superpower, it’s time for the US to hold up to it’s promise to spread Liberty and Justice for all.

#2nextprez

Letters to the Next President 2.0 engaged and connected young people, aged 13-18, as they researched, wrote, and made media to voice their opinions on issues that mattered to them in the 2016 Presidential Election.

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